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Sunday, December 15, 2013

Sports
journalist turned novelist Monte Dutton brings us THE INTANGIBLES, a novel
about a Southern town struggling to integrate in the late 1960s. Those of us
who experienced the 1960s comprehend the effects -- at least on some level-- from the unsettling series of
events of that decade. Dutton wrote his book to describe the problems faced by all sides in the integration efforts. A reviewer claims that THE INTANGIBLES is a “compelling,
finely crafted reflection of a mighty turbulent time and place in our history”
that “blends perfect balance of warmth, humor, action, terror and depth.”

Dutton, who currently lives in South
Carolina, covered Nascar racing as a reporter for 20 years. He has happily
turned to writing fiction, because, he says, “The best way to
tell the truth is to write fiction.” He also enjoys playing the guitar and
writing songs, and loves sports. THE INTANGIBLES is his second novel; his first, THE AUDACITY OF DOPE, was published in 2011.

Don't miss the opportunity to enter a Giveaway at the end of his interview.

Q:What inspired you to write THE INTANGIBLES? Did you base it on real-life experiences and/or events?

Monte Dutton: I was a child
during the period covered by THE INTANGIBLES, but my memories are vivid. Some
characters were created with real people in mind, just as many were not. The
same is true of the events described therein. It’s fair to say that the novel
is loosely based on my recollections of school desegregation and the civil
rights movement as it affected my hometown.

Q:Is THE INTANGIBLES a story about The
South and overcoming bigotry? Or is it about football and how it can contribute
to the solution of social problems?

Monte Dutton: It’s a story
of the former with the experience of a high school football team providing a
foundation. My goal was to depict the cultural change that complicated the
lives of black and white alike.

Q: How do you
engage readers to care about your characters? Did you base them on real people?

Monte Dutton: It’s pretty
simple. By creating characters who interested me, I figured I was creating
characters who would interest readers. It was all a matter of being able to
think the way the characters thought: to imagine myself as them when I was
writing. The world changed rapidly. Fear of those changes was the chief instigator
of the disorder and violence that occurred.

Monte Dutton: It’s a double
entendre. The Intangibles were the slogans on the high school’s locker-room
walls, and when the schools were integrated in Fairmont, the town folk were
plunging into a new way of life whose effects were difficult to anticipate or
measure.

Q: Did you
write THE INTANGIBLES to deliver a message? To entertain? To educate?

Monte Dutton: All of those.
I wanted to depict the hardships of the time. I wanted to remind younger
generations that the cataclysmic events of their lives are not unprecedented. I
tried to write in an irreverent vein that would create amusement, but I also tried
to depict the late 1960s in the South authentically.

Q: What makes a
good villain? Does THE INTANGIBLES have a villain? Or is the concept of bigotry
the “villain?” Do you need a villain to have a hero?

Monte Dutton: The chief
villain is the bitter ex-football coach, Preston Shipley, who has been moved to
principal of Fairmont High School. A conspiracy gathers around Shipley’s
bitterness, which is more personal than political, and draws other villains
into its web. Bigotry plays a role in Shipley’s character that is similar to
the role of slavery in the Civil War. It isn’t his only consideration, but,
without it, he wouldn’t have succumbed to hate and self-destruction.

Q:Your book is set in the late 1960s when
there were no cell phones, personal computers, or internet.How much research did you conduct to
assure historical accuracy? How important is accuracy to credibility?

Monte Dutton:The story begins on the day of JFK’s
assassination, then jumps four years ahead. The rest occurs in 1967-68. I
researched the times in terms of when events occurred: the assassinations of
RFK and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Vietnam War, South Carolina’s
Orangeburg Massacre, and other considerations, such as popular television shows
and hit songs. I blended historical research with my own memories of the times.
If a story is set in the past, it seems to me that it has to ring true if it is
to illuminate as well as entertain.

Q: You have
been a reporter and have written non-fiction books. What is different about the
two approaches? Do you prefer fiction over non-fiction? Were you able to apply
one to the other?

Monte Dutton: I have little
desire to write non-fiction again, though I write the occasional free-lance
story. Journalism isn’t really about telling the truth. It’s about getting as
close to the truth as possible by reporting what people say the truth is. It’s
not the same thing. My favorite irony: The best way to tell the truth is to
write fiction. I really love it. I’m never happier than when sitting at my
laptop, describing a world of my own invention and telling a story that fits
that world.

Q: What’s next?

Monte Dutton: I’m working on
the second draft of Crazy by Natural
Causes, a contemporary novel set in rural Kentucky. In a sense, Chance
Benford in Crazy -- like Riley
Mansfield in my first novel, The Audacity
of Dope -- is a person whose life is uprooted because, well, the damndest
things happen to him. Chance rolls with this flow better than Riley, but both
novels are about the absurdity of life. Audacity
is more of a suspense thriller. Crazy
has its share of suspense, but Riley and Chance don’t have much in common.
Riley has a quiet determination and stubborn streak that Chance lacks. Chance
learns to drift along where the rivers of his life happen to flow.

Q:Tell us about Monte Dutton? What do you
like to do when you’re not working or writing?

Monte Dutton: I love playing
guitar and writing songs. I love sports, most notably the football programs of
Clinton High School and Furman University. I’ve had a lifelong passion for the
Boston Red Sox. I still watch NASCAR races on TV, though I don’t have much
interest in going to the track again. Writing daily blogs on my website
(montedutton.com) has been good therapy and a handy way to get ready to write
fiction. The daily blog is like singing scales in a choir or chorus; it’s a
warm-up exercise as well as a promotional device for raising interest in my
novels.

About
Monte Dutton

Monte Dutton lives
in Clinton, South Carolina. In high school, he played football for a state
championship team, then attended Furman University, Greenville, S.C.,
graduating in 1980, B.A., cum laude, political science/history.

He spent 20 years (1993-2012) writing about
NASCAR for several publications. He was named Writer of the Year by the Eastern
Motorsports Press Association (Frank Blunk Award) in 2003 and Writer of the
Year by the National Motorsports Press Association (George Cunningham Award) in
2008. His NASCAR writing was syndicated by King Feature Syndicate in the form
of a weekly page, "NASCAR This Week" for 17 years.

Monte Dutton is also the author of Pride of
Clinton, a history of high school football in his hometown, 1986; At Speed,
2000 (Potomac Books); Rebel with a Cause: A Season with NASCAR's Tony Stewart,
2001 (Potomac Books); Jeff Gordon: The Racer, 2001 (Thomas Nelson); Postcards
from Pit Road, 2003 (Potomac Books); Haul A** and Turn Left, 2005 (Warner
Books), True to the Roots: Americana Music Revealed, 2006. (Bison Books); and
is an Editor/Contributor of Taking Stock: Life in NASCAR's Fast Lane, 2004 (Potomac
Books).

The Audacity of Dope, 2011 (Neverland
Publishing) was his first novel, and Neverland recently published his second,
THE INTANGIBLES. Another, Crazy by Natural Causes, is in the works.

It’s 1968. The winds of change are
descending on Fairmont and engulfing the small South Carolina town in a
tornadic frenzy. The public schools are finally being completely integrated.
Mossy Springs High School is closing and its black students are now attending
formerly all-white Fairmont High; the town is rife with racial tension. Several
black youths have been arrested for tossing firebombs at a handful of stores.
White citizens form a private academy for the purpose of keeping their kids out
of the integrated school system. The Ku Klux Klan is growing.

Reese Knighton arrives on the scene at
precisely the right time. The principal of Fairmont High School, Claude Lowell,
becomes superintendent of the school district. Lowell chooses Preston Shipley,
currently the football coach, to replace him as principal and hires Knighton to
coach the team, thus forcing Knighton to find common ground with Willie
Spurgeon, the successful Mossy Springs coach who has been passed over for a job
he richly deserves.

At The Intangibles’ center is the Hoskins
family, their relationships to those living within the town of Fairmont giving
rise to a memorable cast of characters. Tommy Hoskins is a local businessman
and farmer who is a supporter of the team, on which his older son, Frankie,
plays. Frankie’s best friend is Raymond Simpson, who lives in a shanty on the
Hoskins’ farm. Another of Frankie’s friends, Ned Whitesides, is a spoiled
bigot. Clarence “Click” Clowney is the talented, rebellious quarterback from
Mossy Springs. Al Martin is the staunch black tackle who becomes the glue that
keeps the integrated team together. Twins James and Joey Leverette are the sons
of professors at local Oconee College. Curly Mayhew coaches rival Lexington
Central. Laura Hedison is a white cheerleader. Jorge Heredia is a tennis player
at the college who sells drugs on the side. Aubrey Roper is a college girl who
exerts a corruptive influence on Frankie Hoskins. The county sheriff, a
turncoat within the team, Ned Whitesides’ father, the loyal assistants,
militants both black and white, a doctor, a lawyer, local businessmen, and
others all add fuel to the fires of prejudice and fear of the unknown that are
raging in the town of Fairmont.

This is a story of a high school football
team that puts aside its differences, never realizing that, outside its bounds,
the world is unraveling. It’s a story about the cultural changes, good and bad,
that take place when two societies shift and finally come together.

Ultimately, THE INTANGIBLES is a story of
triumph achieved at considerable cost.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Author and
journalist Catherine Feeny imagined what it might be like to fall for a movie
star and move with him to Hollywood.
In “Into-the-Woods” style, her new book FLOWER GIRL takes readers to the
next step of the fairy tale, which, according to reviewers, includes many twists and turns.

FLOWER GIRL is
Feeny’s fifth novel. She also is a freelance journalist and writes short
stories and drama for BBC Radio 4. She currently lives in London – where she
loves to cook, especially to bake bread. She also lived in the U.S. for four
years and spent time in France and Spain.

Catherine
Feeny: FLOWER GIRL is a romance, but it has elements of mystery and intrigue too.

I
had always wondered what would happen if you got to live the dream: to meet a
movie star and have him whisk you off to Hollywood. The answer I came up with
was that, however handsome and charismatic his image might be, you would still
wake up with a real man. That idea intrigued me and it was what I went on to
explore in the novel.

Q:
How do you make FLOWER GIRL “an emotional roller coaster, well worth the ride!”
– as described by a reviewer? How do you engage your readers to care about the “flower
girl”?

Catherine
Feeny: Let
me answer the second question first. I think readers care about Violet, whose
work as a freelance florist gives the novel its title, because she is a
compelling and believable character, who has to find a way of dealing with a
remarkable sequence of events.

Once
you care about Violet, the twists and turns of the plot are an emotional roller
coaster because you experience them with and through her.

Q:
Would you describe Violet Lake, your protagonist, as a modern, independent
woman? How important is her type of character to the development of your story?

Catherine
Feeny: Yes,
she is modern and independent. She also has her feet on the ground and doesn’t
stand in awe of anybody. That is why she is able to navigate a course through
the craziness that is showbiz Hollywood.

The
story is mostly described through Violet’s eyes, so she is immensely important
to its development. Initially she is completely out of her depth in the world
into which she has tumbled, but she is not naive and she is certainly no fool.
She makes sense of her situation by means of a level-headed gaze and a good
pinch of sardonic wit. Her journey is also the reader’s.

Q:
Were you able to use your journalist skills to write a fictional novel? Or is
the differencebetween reporting news and creating a story difficult to cross?

Catherine
Feeny: I
very much used what I learnt as a journalist when writing FLOWER GIRL. In
particular my time in the Shetland Isles, where I lived until recently. The Shetland
Isles are Britain’s most northerly archipelago, situated fifteen hours by ferry
from the Scottish mainland. They have their own distinct identity, and an oral
storytelling tradition still thrives there.

As
a journalist I met up with lots Shetland folk, and heard the wonderful tales
they had to tell. In the process I fell in love with the twists and turns of
spellbinding narrative, and that is reflected in the intricate plot of FLOWER GIRL.

Journalistic
writing must be punchy, immediate, and full of arresting turns of phrase. I
also incorporated those characteristics into the language of FLOWER GIRL.

Q:
How would you define a “villain”? Does FLOWER GIRL have “villains”?

Catherine
Feeny: A
villain is an antagonist; the person who endeavours to prevent a happy ending.
Oh yes, FLOWER GIRL has several, my favourite being the malevolent Harold
Acker, of whom I will say no more. People will just have to read the novel!

Q:
Did you write FLOWER GIRL primarily to entertain? Did you also write it to educate
or deliver a message?

Catherine
Feeny: I
did write FLOWER GIRL primarily to entertain, which goes back to my delight in
telling a cracking good story. I certainly didn’t intend to educate, but any
novel is bound to indicate its writer’s approach to life, and give a sense of
their priorities.

Q:
In addition to writing your novels, you are also a journalist. When did you
first realize that you are a writer? What has inspired you to continue to
write?

Catherine
Feeny: I
have written ever since I was a child. I continue because I can’t imagine not
doing so. There would be a void in my life that nothing else could fill.

Q:
How is FLOWER GIRL different from your four previous novels?

Catherine
Feeny: My
four previous novels were written before I lived in Shetland, and their aim was
to make a political point. Although they did have romantic elements, FLOWER GIRL represents a move into a different genre.

My
four previous novels were published by Hodder & Stoughton. FLOWER GIRL is
published on Amazon Kindle. That was another big departure for me, but I am
convinced that ebooks are the future. I like the speed with which they can come
onto the market, and the way in which, as a writer, you have control over every
aspect of the publishing process, from choosing a cover to marketing. They also
put authors into a new and much closer relationship with their public. These
are exciting times for writers and readers alike. It is no exaggeration to say
that we are in the throes of a literary revolution.

Q:
What’s next?

Catherine
Feeny: I’m
currently gestating an idea for another novel, but I’ll leave it at that. I’m a
bit superstitious about a work in progress!

Q:
Tell us about Catherine Feeny. What do you like to do when you’re not writing
or working?

Catherine
Feeny: I
love to cook. In particular I am a passionate breadmaker. The alchemy that
happens when you bring so few ingredients together never ceases to thrill me.
And the smell of fresh bread is just magical!

More About Catherine Feeny

Catherine Feeny is the author of four previous
novels, published by Hodder & Stoughton. She also teaches Creative Writing,
works as a freelance journalist, and writes short stories and drama for BBC
Radio 4. She currently lives in Lincoln UK, but has spent time in France and Spain,
and lived in the United States for four years. Her travels around America by
Greyhound bus at the age of sixteen were among the inspirations for FLOWERGIRL.

FLOWER GIRL tells the story of how a night of passion leads London florist Violet Lake
to leave her former life behind, and fly off with her movie star lover to live
with him in his Hollywood mansion. Once there, however, Violet’s fantasy starts
to unravel, and she finds herself catapulted into an adventure which carries
her across the entire American continent, and leaves her future happiness
hanging in the balance.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Mystery
author Lynn Albrecht brings us DYING FOR SEX touted by reviewers as a “Great mystery, great humor” and “Sex, drugs, and
an old folks home? How could it get any better?” Albrecht values humor—which
comes through in her interview—but understands that a mystery with lots of
twists, turns, and red herrings creates an entertaining book.

Albrecht originally worked in broadcasting and then in the field of
corporate communications—a career I pursued for more than 25 years. (I, too,
did not do well with the power suits.) So I can appreciate her career change to
become a social worker. Today she continues to work part time as a social
worker and lives in Canada with her husband.

Be sure to check into her "Huge Kindle Giveaway" posted at the end of the interview. You could win a Kindle Paperwhite!

Q:Your reviewers praise the mystery in
DYING FOR SEX. How did you conceive it? What inspired it? Was it based on real
events?

Lynn Albrecht: I had tried to
write novels in my thirties––a romance and a historical novel. I never got very
far. Many years passed until the urge to write a story came over me again. This
time I knew that in order to succeed, I had to write about what I knew. When I
started writing DYING FOR SEX at the age of fifty-four, I
figured I knew about quite a few things. I’d had some career changes, a couple
of kids, a failed marriage, fallen in love again, and watched my formerly toned
youthful body morph into something I barely recognized. I worked with the elderly
as a social worker and realized that as we age the twenty-year old voice inside
us is still there despite what is happening on the outside.I wanted the main character to be older
and going through the stuff that we go through as we age. And I wanted the
seniors in the story to be fun and have distinct personalities just like in
real life.

I
also knew that I had to have the whole swinger scenario in the story somehow.
Most of my adult life I have heard a lot of rumors and stories about the swinger
lifestyle. When I started researching it for the book, I was astounded to learn
there was actually an “adult lifestyle club” in the heart of the city I lived
at that time. The more I looked into it the more I realized that a) it was more
popular than I ever realized, and b) for me, it’s a subject that inspires
hilarity. Could I ask for more? Let’s
face it, sex can just be downright funny.

Q: How
important is humor to telling your story?

Lynn Albrecht:Very. My main goal was to make people
laugh. I have always loved Janet Evanovich’s and Laura Levine’s books. I
started reading the Stephanie Plum series in my forties and I can tell you
those books saved me from plunging into total insanity some days. My son wanted
to get his gazillieth piercing, my daughter announced she was leaving
university to learn how to massage horses, and my boobs were starting to droop
so badly they slapped me in the face when I jogged. So I would lose myself in
one of Janet’s books and the world suddenly didn’t look so bad anymore,
although the whole boob thing remained very disconcerting.

Q: Your
reviewers point out the successful integration of intrigue and humor in DYING FOR SEX.How did you keep readers
in suspense and laughing?

Lynn Albrecht:I had to keep reminding myself not to
get too serious. I knew I had to have lots of twists and turns in the plot and
a few red herrings, but I kept the voice of Lindy in the forefront.She just has a way of turning a
potentially serious situation into mayhem. DYING FOR SEX is not a scary book.
No blood, no gore, but a good mystery that I think, keeps you guessing as well
as laughing.

Q: How do you
create credibility for your amateur sleuth, Lindy Sutton, to the extent that we
believe she can solve the mystery? Why do readers care what happens to her?

Lynn Albrecht:She’s a lot like you and me. She’s just
this woman who’s been drawn into helping solve a mystery by the victim’s
brother. She has absolutely no idea how to go about it. So she pulls in her
best friend and her sister to help, as well as this old gay guy named Chappy Lowton,
who lives at the retirement home where the victim worked. They’re all just
ordinary people, bumbling along asking questions, and getting into trouble in
the process. Along the way, life intrudes. Her son brings home this
outrageously ugly bus and parks it in their driveway, her long dormant hormones
fire up for the very annoying detective on the case, and her sister constantly
makes fun of her. Lindy’s not particularly brilliant or brave, she’s hard on
herself, and uses humor to cover up her insecurities. She doesn’t solve the
mystery in a concise, methodical way, because she’s not like a Kay
Scarpetta.But she does solve it.
And I think she does it the way you or I might, and I think that’s why people
like her character.

Q:Did you write DYING FOR SEX purely for
entertainment? Or were you trying to educate your readers? Deliver a message?

Lynn Albrecht:My goal was to entertain and hopefully,
keep people guessing about the identity of the murderer and what was going to
happen next. Any messages that are in the book are pretty simple I think.
Seniors are not staid, used-up, people with nothing to offer. The elderly
people in DYING FOR SEX, all have very different, and I think, interesting
personalities and they are important to the storyline. Fifty-year old women can
be funny, still have a lot to offer and think about sex. People are diverse and
therefore diverse in their tastes and proclivities. Mothers will protect a
child no matter how old either of them get. Laughter just makes life better.
Nothing too pithy.DYING FOR SEX
ain’tDostoyevsky after all.

Q: How helpful
is the concept of villain versus hero to telling your story? Do the actions of
your villain result in the heroic responses of the protagonist?

Lynn Albrecht: Lindy is not
the typical kind of hero you see in a lot of mysteries. This is a light mystery
so Lindy isn’t going to grab a machine gun and take out a gaggle of assassins
or anything like that. I tried to make it believable even though Lindy tends to
end up in some ridiculous situations. She’s kind of a chaos magnet, but
believable chaos. I think because it is a light mystery, the idea of the
villain is less intense but still does bad things. Lindy reacts to that, but
again, in a way that you or I might.

Q: Is any of
DYING FOR SEX based on real events? Is the back story based on your own
experiences or did you need to do research?

Lynn Albrecht:Well as I said earlier, I am a little
older than Lindy. So I did base some of her thoughts, feelings on things I have
been through, especially her relationship with her son Brent, how she feels
about her changing body, sexuality, and her love of Spanx of course. The swinger part of it required a whole lot of
on-line research, which needed nerves of steel and a few stiff drinks. But I got
through it.

Q: Did your
characters push you around and make you write what they wanted? Or were you in
control? Did you start with an outline?

Lynn Albrecht: I sat down
one Easter weekend and wrote out the entire plot on index cards. Then I started
writing, going from one card to the next. At first it was a struggle to let the
characters’ voices come out. It took me a while before I relaxed and just let
their voices take over. I kept control of the plot and where the characters
were going, but I let the characters take over control of the dialogue and the
narrative feel of the book. In particular, I felt that Lindy’s voice had to be
strong and consistent.

Q:What’s next?

Lynn Albrecht: I still work
part-time as a social worker and I’m working hard to promote DYING FOR SEX.I’m a novice when it comes to things
like twitter, face book, and well, blog tours. It’s a steep learning curve. My
publisher does help, but really the onus is on me to get the book noticed. But
I’m learning and it’s another adventure. I’m enjoying it.

When
I am not promoting DYING FOR SEX, I am working on the second Lindy Sutton
mystery. The same characters are in it––Lindy, Patty, Toni, Dixie, and of
course, Chappy Lowton.

Q:Tell us about Lynn Albrecht. What do
you like to do when you’re not writing?

Lynn Albrecht: Not a hell of
a lot. Give me a good mystery and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and I’m happy. I
do travel with my husband when we have the time and money to do so. I love
Sedona, Arizona in particular so we try to visit there once a year. I periodically
bug my two adult children in a valiant effort to make them remember I’m still
around and have relevance in their lives. Sometimes it works. And I spend an
inordinate amount of time sussing out sales on Spanx and trying to figure out why my knees have started to droop.

About
Lynn Albrecht

Lynn C. Albrecht started her career in
broadcasting. Quickly realizing she was not going to be the next Lisa Laflamme,
she entered the world of corporate communications. After years of writing
videos, speeches, advertising, and dressing in power suits with shoulders pads
that made her look like Hunter Hearst Helmsley, she had a great epiphany. She
ditched the shoulder pads and returned to school. Five years later, she was
released into the unsuspecting healthcare system as a social worker. She works
at St. Mary’s General Hospital in Kitchener, Ontario.

Lynn lives in Baden, Ontario with her
infinitely patient husband, John Belton. DYING FOR SEX is her first book. She
is currently hard at work on the second Lindy Sutton mystery.

Lindy Sutton has her hands full. In between
having her clown act clobbered by pint-sized critics, keeping a group of
sex-crazed octogenarians from starting brawls in the raciest bar in town, and
trying to keep her crazy Aunt Pip from being tossed out of Laughing Pines
retirement home, she still has to contend with her son’s garish band bus parked
in her driveway. Could things get any worse? Yup! Margaret Quaid, the social
worker at Laughing Pines is found dead of an apparent overdose and the drop
dead handsome detective on the case, thinks she stole the drugs from the
retirement home and was pretty active in the world of wife swapping to boot.
Lindy’s temper soars, along with her long dormant hormones, as she sets out to
clear Margaret’s name, find the murderer and make the sexy detective eat crow.
Aided and abetted by the aging but flamboyant Chappy Lowton, her eccentric and
sarcastic sister, her best friend Patty, and that hoard of sex-crazed
geriatrics, Lindy wades into the world of swingers only to find that there are
plenty of people with a motive to kill the social worker.http://lynncalbrecht.com

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Mystery author
Jill Edmondson knows what she likes, and her latest book FRISKY BUSINESS involves her
hard-boiled detective Sasha Jackson in another Toronto-based case. Edmondson believes in building credibility
through leaving loose ends and making mistakes – in addition to factual
accuracy. And a hero will always
be a hero – but needs a catalyst to be so.

Edmondson loves
to travel and – like, yours truly – goes to Broadway plays (oh I wish I, too, could
have seen nine in the past year!). She also enjoys her two toothless Maltese
dogs.

Jill Edmondson: The book was totally inspired by chapter two of Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges.Hedges is one of my favorite writers,
and Empire of Illusion is one of the
most thought-provoking books I’ve read in a long time.In chapter two, Hedges examines the
realities of the “adult entertainment” industry, particularly XXX movies.I can’t remember the last time I read
anything that made me so angry.It
made me mad enough to kill, well, only fictionally…

Q: How do you
convince readers that Sasha Jackson is a credible hard-boiled private
detective? What makes her “hard-boiled?” Why do readers care what happens to
her?

Jill Edmondson:I am so
happy to be able to say that readers tell me again and again that they can
relate to her, that they’d like to hang out with her.She’s fun, and likes to have a good time, but there’s more
to her than that.

Like the archetypal hard-boiled PI, Sasha
has an inner moral compass that guides her.Making things right is her goal, and if a few stupid rules
get broken in the process… Sasha can be counted on to do the right thing, but
will probably do it the wrong way.That’s fine though, the results are what matters, even if she does end
up setting her hair on fire, or getting shot in the boobs, or totaling an
expensive car…

Q: Why did you
decide to write a series featuring Sasha Jackson?

Jill Edmondson:Sasha was
clearly formed in my mind before I ever started writing, before I even came up
with an idea for a plot!This was
a result of a few things…

·For several years, I ran a
mystery book club (and for a while I actually ran two mystery book clubs).

·In 2005, I was a judge for the
Arthur Ellis Awards (and read about 60 mysteries in about 4 months)

·When I was doing my MA, I did a
few research papers on Women in Crime Fiction.

·I was a non-author member of
Crime Writers of Canada and of Sisters in Crime.

All of those things combined to give birth
to Sasha.I knew the mystery genre
really well.I had a solid idea of
what I liked and didn’t like in a mystery novel or character.I had a good idea of what was
under-represented in the genre.And I’d learned from various discussions what fellow readers DIDN’T like
or what they wished there was more of in the genre.When I decided to try my hand at writing, I knew right away
who my sleuth would be.

Q:How relevant is Toronto as a setting
for telling the story? Does it add to the mystery? Are you able to exploit its
unique aspects?

Jill Edmondson:Very, yes, and yes!The city is almost another character,
and many reviewers have commented (favorably) on the setting.Toronto is diverse, and it really is a
city of neighbourhoods.Each area
of the city, to some extent, can be characterized by culture, mood, commerce,
language, income, and so on.These
locales add to the plots of each Sasha book.The series wouldn’t be the same if it were set in, let’s
say, Vancouver or Boston.

A while ago, I managed to get the Sasha
books into the hands of David Mayor, the former Mayor of Toronto, and he Tweeted:

Gorgeous day to
kick back with a big mug of coffee and the latest Jill Edmondson mystery - in which Toronto plays itself.

And:

- the books are
terrific and Sasha suitably feisty. And I love Toronto playing itself!

That was pretty high praise!

Q: Did you
write FRISKY BUSINESS solely to entertain? Or also to educate or deliver a
message?

Jill Edmondson:Entertainment must come first, but if there’s
a message subtly delivered as well, then great!

Q:Are you a believer in heroes and
villains? What makes an engaging villain? Does a hero depend on the villain’s
actions to become a hero?

Jill Edmondson:A hero will always be a hero,
that innate sense of morals or justice will always BE there, but it takes some
kind of a catalyst, some precipitating event to SHOW the hero’s character.Superman
never leaped tall buildings in a single bound just because he was
bored.

As for villains… that’s tricky.If a writer goes too far in making a
villain loathsome, then the reader may be turned off.I think a workable villain needs to have a shred of decency,
some indication of humanity… buried way deep down.

Q:How do you make your story “credible?”
Does credibility enhance the mystery and/or suspense?

Jill Edmondson:There are
many things a mystery author can do to add credibility, making it factual,
researching bullet wounds and blood spatter patterns, and so on.But to me, one of the best ways to make
a story credible is to have mistakes, to have loose ends.Real life does not unfold logically or
perfectly, with everything wrapped up in a nice little package.As long as order is restored in the
end, the journey to that destination can and should contain a SNAFU or two.

Q:How important is humor in telling your
story or creating your characters?

Jill Edmondson:I think a
dose of humor is necessary.I want
readers to have a giggle now and then.For me, this is easiest to do in dialogue.Often, when I write, I’m laughing my head off.I can get away with saying or doing
things in fiction that I’d never say or do in real life.

Q:What’s next? Will you be writing more
Sasha Jackson stories?

Jill Edmondson:Number five, Odd Lang Syne, is already underway.It’s about Gina Gervais, a former teen
idol.Gina is at the peak of her
comeback, back on the top of the charts.Everything should be golden, but it’s not.She’s going through a nasty divorce, she’s got a stalker,
and, oh sh*t, someone’s just released
a sex tape of her.If that’s not
bad enough, her estranged husband is murdered, and guess who the number one
suspect is?

Q:Tell us about Jill Edmondson. What do
you like to do when you’re not writing?

Jill Edmondson:Can I borrow your credit card
before I answer that question?I
love to travel.Put me on a plane
to anywhere!I never really plan
my trips, I just bumble along when I get there.

My other favourite money vacuum, I mean
pastime, is going to concerts, musicals and live theatre.I’ve seen 9 Broadway shows in the last
~year!

About Jill Edmondson

Jill Edmondson is
the author of the Sasha Jackson
mystery series. There’s a thin line between Jill and her sleuth Sasha,
although Jill has never worked at a phone sex hotline, and Sasha isn’t a
language geek. Jill enjoys bumming around any country where they speak a
Latin-based language. She also loves head-banging rock concerts, ice cream, palm trees, and absolutely
adores her two toothless Maltese dogs.

This time around, PI Sasha Jackson is investigating the
murder of a porn star...
The drug addicted girl was a worthless nobody, so the cops aren't putting much
effort into finding out who killed her. Sasha takes on the case, and
learns that the dirty picture business iswaydirtier than it seems. She discovers
surprising motives and even more surprising secrets, and just when she thinks
she's solved the case, another dead body turns up.
Meanwhile, Sasha's private life is a shambles. Her brother is pissing her
off, Sasha's love-life is on the rocks, and her BFF has her nose out of joint
over Sasha's latest revelations. And then there's the driving
instructor, the locksmith and the glazier. Let's just say it's a good
thing that Sasha has a credit card.
Why can't everyone just chill out long enough for Sasha to get in a good jam
session, or have a good night's sleep?
Oh, for crying out loud, pass the Scotch...

When
not talking dirty at her part-time phone sex job, fledgling gumshoe Sasha
Jackson is spending her days learning how “till death do us part” applies to
her jilted client.

Christine Arvisais was dumped by her
gold-plated fiancé Gordon just days before mailing the wedding
invitations.Four months later,
Gordon was shot during his Saturday morning jog.

Then another former fiancé is killed and it
appears Cupid’s bow is no match for the Grim Reaper’s scythe.As Sasha continues her investigation,
she uncovers a pattern of guys who skipped “I do” and now never will.

Links

Jill Edmondson is the author of four
mystery novels.FRISKY BUSINESS is
the latest novel featuring PI Sasha Jackson.